Social media helping put criminals behind bars

BATON ROUGE - With crime around the capital area on the rise, deputies at the East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office are turning to social media for help. The office is posting stolen items and surveillance video of thieves on their Facebook page weekly.

It’s proving to be successful. In the past two months, the sheriff's office posted 14 unsolved cases. All of them have been cleared by arrest, or discovered it happened overseas. Some people are even turning themselves in because of these posts.

"Efforts on the law enforcement part is short-lived without community involvement,” said Public Information Officer Casey Hicks. “I think this is a great way to have a two-way communication, real-time communication."

This means real-time results as well. Hicks says it only took one day to solve a theft at a grocery store in Greenwell Springs.

“We had an elderly woman whose purse was stolen and she had her hearing aid in it,” said Hicks.

Thanks to 1,600 shares, the suspects were caught.

“The stories that really hit home with people in the community, those really get shared and circulated,” said Hicks.

So much so, one woman even confessed after her picture was posted on the social media site for stealing at a store.

“People were tagging her in the comments and she even commented back and basically admitted to the crime on our comments with her name and profile,” said Hicks.

Hicks says with the recent successful postings people can expect to see them more often.